Sunday, 17 November 2013

Kombucha Vinegar Flu Tonic

As winter approaches, it can be helpful to strengthen our immune
system and try to get a leg up on colds and flu. This remedy/booster
uses kombcha vinegar as it’s foundation. Being an avid kombucha maker
(I make 2 gallons at a time), I often end up with more than I can drink,
so every once in awhile I make some kombucha vinegar.

In case you haven’t accidentally discovered how to make kombucha
vinegar on your own, I’ll share a quick parallel. I have a teacher who
once gave some simplified instructions on how to do a certain meditation
which he referred to as the “non-doing meditation.” The point of the
meditation is to pay attention to your experience, whatever it may be,
and not monkey with it in any way. His guidance couldn’t have been more
simple: “Put your butt on a cushion. End of instruction.” Making
kombucha vinegar is a little like that. If you want to quote me, it’s:
“Put kombucha in bottle. Wait until it turns to vinegar. End of
instruction.”

Once you have this vinegar, what to do with it? Aside from using it
for dressings and sauces, this particular recipe is a great way to use
up a bunch of vinegar and make something healthy for you in the process.
This recipe is for a small amount, so you can test if you like it, but
there’s no reason you couldn’t make much larger batches.

Put lid on. If using a jar which has exposed metal in the lid, it
can be helpful to place some wax paper over the jar opening and screw
the lid down over that. This can help to prevent the metal from
corroding.

Place in the refrigerator and wait about a month. This could benefit by steeping for much longer and continuing to get stronger.

Strain out the solids and pour into a jar and keep it in the refrigerator

Drink a Tbsp or more each morning

Some commonly claimed benefits of the various ingredients in this tonic are: